Browsing by Author "Melsada Frame, Sharon"

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    Thought-based superior speaking: an EAP higher-order thinking course designed to accelerate the spoken language proficiency of advanced EFL students
    (PUCE - Quito, 2021) Melsada Frame, Sharon; Monteros Altamirano, Ivanova Mercedes
    A growing demand for English proficiency in the global economic sphere has accelerated the pace of EFL learning, especially in functional, spoken language skill competence. The purpose of the study is to investigate the need for an English for Academic Purposes (EAP) course design that fast-tracks the speaking proficiency skills of advanced L2 learners by cultivating their higher order thinking. Using mixed-method analysis, the research examined a general English Superior Speaking course I piloted two years ago to determine how it could be restructured to create an effective EAP speaking course by integrating metacognition to accelerate students’ verbal language skills. The probe explores ways to turbocharge the students from rote learners to cognitive thinkers to metacognitive strategists. This way, they become self-directed, autonomous scholars who use functional language to plan, evaluate, and monitor their own mental and verbal intelligence. Results of numerous task-based, higher order thinking activities were measured to assess the potential success of such a unique EAP course. Also, audio, video and written testimonials from participating students were found to attribute dynamic improvement in their thinking and speaking skills to the metacognitive teaching approaches I experimented with in my current Superior Speaking class, and now proposed for the EAP course. The study definitively offers credence to the notion of an EAP public speaking course that uses higher order thinking to boost advanced EFL students’ speaking prowess. Further study is needed to explore ways the causal relationship between higher order thinking and higher order speaking can be further developed in L2 students well after the EAP class ends, and to investigate how these students can perpetuate their own self-ditermined language acquisition.